Hello from Beth: After yesterday’s late-night Chicago White Sox season-saving 12 to 6 playoff victory over the Houston Astros, Mike is away on Cloud Nine. For today’s Mondays with Mike feature, we’re reblogging a post he wrote July 20, 2020. Things sure were a lot different then!

15 months ago there were More people in the outfield than in the bleachers.

by Mike Knezovich

Originally published on July 20, 2020

Today’s guest blogger, Bill Gordon

I am pleased to Welcome Bill Gordon back as a guest blogger today. Born and raised in Kansas, Bill lived all over the country during his nearly 50-year career in library and association management. When he retired in 2002, he was the Executive Director of The American Library Association, located here in Chicago, and has called Chicago home ever since. Bill has been in one or another of my memoir-writing classes since 2013. We’ve come to know each other very well over the years, and after he celebrated his 85th birthday with a few friends last month he sent me a short note. “For entertainment, I decided to read a few of my essays out loud for those friends,” it said. “I wasn’t certain that I should, but it turned out to be a hit. Who knew??”

He needn’t have been surprised. Bill’s essays are always well-written, sometimes witty, sometimes sentimental, always thought-provoking. I hope this was one he read that night, and I thank him for giving me permission to share it here with you Safe & Sound blog readers today.

by Bill Gordon

From the plateau of eighty-five years old I am looking across the decades of my life to see which changes altered my course, changed my direction, upended my plans.

The death of my father when I was a teenager and the devastating financial changes it caused to our lives? Finding myself on my own at eighteen? Marriage? Divorce? Moving six times? Criss-crossing the country for my career? Starting a new life over and over as I moved from city to city? My nearly two-year long travel adventure around the world? Crippling disability? Confinement to a wheelchair? No, none of these changed my life like this one word did:

HOMOSEXUAL.

In 1949 I was an eighth grader at Liberty Jr. High in Hutchinson, Kansas. Lunch was not provided in the public schools, so I had to race home nine blocks, eat lunch and return to school within an hour.

Our first mail delivery of the day — we received two a day in 1949 — was at 10:00 in the morning, so I could peruse the mail while eating lunch.

Many households like ours subscribed to periodicals to supplement what we heard on the radio and read in the daily newspaper. Reader’s Digest was among our magazine subscriptions. Unlike other publications, the table of contents was listed on the Digest’s cover

The memory of one particular lunch time is unforgettable. Among the articles listed on the cover of the Digest was one titled “Homosexuality: The Scourge of America.” I had never seen that word before, but I instantly knew it had something to do with me.

With no time to read the article I raced back to school and spent the afternoon exhausted by anxiety…and eager to have a chance to read the article.

The news was worse than I imagined. The three well-known medical professionals who wrote the article suggested such things as lobotomies, castration, exile, conversion therapy, and institutionalization for all homosexuals. They classified homosexuals as perverts, mentally ill, and contemptible people who engaged in unnatural, illegal acts.

From an early age — perhaps four or five — I knew there was something different about me. As I grew older, I realized I was sexually drawn to both males and females. My early explorations were with boys, a fairly normal maturing process, as it turns out. But then why did my groin tingle just as much when I looked at Janis as it did when I looked at Charlie?

My examination of the card catalog at the Hutchinson Public Library frightened me even more. Under the heading Homosexual it said “see Mental Illness and Criminal Activity.” A surreptitious examination of the literature seemed to confirm that acting on my sexual impulses would mean I was mentally ill and, perhaps, a criminal. But how could that be? I felt I was mentally fit and a law-abiding citizen. Now that I had a word to apply to what or who I was, what was I to do?

My first impulse was to run away. The last thing I wanted to be was an embarrassment to my parents. But running away was not realistic. That would cause my parents anxiety and embarrassment. Suicide never crossed my mind — I liked myself too much. A curious kid, I wanted to see what tomorrow might hold.

What I did know was that I had to hide who I really was.

Permanent change took place for me the moment I saw the word “homosexual.” No more living an authentic life. From then on I intuitively understood I had to disguise anything about myself that might give me away. Being “normal” was the part I would have to play forever. I would have to learn to lie and alter the truth to meet others’ expectations.

My self-imposed rules became: be careful what you say, watch how you walk, notice what you wear, be careful not to stand out, develop a persona that will match what you believe is expected of you, do not have close friends, do your best to fit in or be invisible, be the best student you can be as a defense, do not react if teased or taunted. Feeling I had to live with so many rules, life became exhausting, but I knew somehow I was up to it.

Luck has often been on my side, and as luck would have it, I have led, from my point of view, a fascinating life filled with adventure, friendships, success, and most of all love. I have had the good fortune of being able to adapt, adjusting as the rules changed.

Looking back over these many years, I am comforted knowing that, most important of all, I have loved and been loved with depth and passion. Who could want more?

People with disabilities face a lot—there’s the disability itself. But there’s also the boxes others can put disabled people in. I’ve seen it first-hand. A lot of what Beth does is extremely difficult and sometimes scary. But if she lets on to that, others will assume that she has limitations that she doesn’t have. And she doesn’t want to be a hero or an inspiration—she wants to be Beth.

I hope you’ll read Peter Sagal’s piece in Chicago Magazine. But if you want a quick take on Jason Benetti, check out this animated video he did for the Cerebral Palsy Foundation.

I’ve even felt it. When we had Gus at home some would confer sainthood on me (I’ve always done a good job setting them straight, though). Others treated me like a martyr. One woman, who of all things worked as a social worker, once said to Beth: “Other men would have left.” What to say?

OK, now to the point: Many or most of you probably know Peter Sagal, the host of NPR’s “Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me.” He’s terrific on that show. As I have just learned, he’s a helluva writer, too. He wrote a terrific piece in Chicago Magazine about one of Beth’s and my own favorite humans: White Sox TV play-by-play guy Jason Benetti.

It’s title: “The Storyteller of the White Sox”

Benetti has a whale of a story himself. He was born with cerebral palsy and spent his first months of life in neonatal intensive care. Raised in Homewood, a south suburb of Chicago, he grew up a White Sox fan.

Besides the White Sox games he does with color man Steve Stone, he does a zillion ESPN games—NCAA basketball, some MLB games, and I even stumbled onto a Lacrosse game he announced.

He’s brilliant and funny, and Sagal, who has become friends with Benetti, has written a terrific piece that draws out and explains the kinds of issues Benetti and other disable people face. And how they have to adjust their own attitudes.

A snippet:

Jason knows people stare at him. They always have. Jason knows that his legs are oddly curved, that he walks with a full-body hitch in his step, and that his eyes point in two different directions, making people who don’t know him think he’s congenitally stupid. Jason is far too kind to put it this way, and too well mannered, but his remarkable career and potentially unlimited success isn’t a triumph over adversity. It’s a message to everybody who ever called him a gimp, to parents who told their children not to stare, to the flight attendant who asked him three times if he could handle the weighty duties of sitting in an exit row, and, while we’re at it, to the rival Jason beat out for a college radio sports director job who said, on a public forum, “Well, at least he will be a great magazine story.” And that message is: Fuck you.

I doubt Benetti would ever mouth those words, but his achievements do get the point across. Later in the article, Benetti articulates something that I’ve always felt but never have been able to articulate myself: The tendency to make poster children out of people with disabilities. From the article:

I ask him about his role as a symbol of hope and triumph to the disabled and abled alike. He remains sensitive about it, especially the suspicion — fading but still lingering — that he got his chances to succeed only so he could make everybody else feel better. “You know those video clips where, say, the high school football team lets its disabled manager suit up and take the field and the other team lets him score a touchdown? I have an aversion to those. It’s like dropping food on a country in a famine. It’s nice and a good thing … but what’s going to happen after that?”

But he’s not bitter, and he understands why he is an inspiration to some. A quote from the piece:

I had hoped there was going to be a level of excellence that I would get to that people would just stop caring about how I look. That’s never going to happen. But … I got an email from a guy with a daughter who has CP, and he’s constantly fighting for her, to get her access, to get her opportunity. And he said that when she gets down, he tells her to just watch the White Sox on TV. ‘Forget all that,’ he tells her. ‘Look at Jason. You can do it!’

Indeed.

My father and his three brothers served in the armed forces during WWII. I grew up with a simplistic reverie for them, and the armed forces, and had that simplistic, callow view that the good guys won. My dad and my uncles were good guys. The good guys did win.

My dad (left), uncle George (center), and Uncle Dave were in the Army. Uncle Steve was a Navy guy.

They were good guys, but it was and still isn’t simple. Their lives were completely interrupted and one of them came home physically, but he never was himself again. Once an avid hunter, he swore of firearms forever. He wasn’t right, he self-medicated, and he died way too soon. My dad and two other brothers lived on, but they didn’t talk about the war.

Today, when I go to a White Sox game, a serviceman—active or veteran—is honored. It happens in all MLB parks, and other sports do the same. I have mixed feelings about these ceremonies. For one, my father, I know this, would have had nothing to do with such a thing. For another, showing a service person on the jumbotron and cheering wildly seems to be as much about the crowd as it is the honoree.

It’s seems a little cheap, a little easy. A few weeks ago the honoree was a veteran who had served during the Battle of the Bulge. I mean, holy cow.

As a simple thank you, I guess it’s OK. I just think, there’s a lot more to know about what people who serve deal with. And it’s a lot.

Beth’s sister married an Army helicopter pilot. They raised a family and lived in Tennessee. And Alabama. And Georgia. And Hawaii and Germany (twice). Sounds kind of exotic but it couldn’t have been easy.

Give it a look.

Anyway, I say all this by way of recommending a web publication I came across a few years ago called The War Horse. It’s good journalism about– and mostly by–members of the armed forces, and it gets into what they face—individually and as families. It is not a rah-rah thing, and it looks at really difficult things. I’ve learned a lot about today’s volunteer Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines and U.S Coast Guard.

And I’ve learned to check any preconceived notions at the door.

As a test run, I highly recommend this piece: Reflecting on the 20th Anniversary of the 9/11 Attacks

It’s by a former Army F-16 pilot who policed the no-fly zone in Iraq in the 1990s. His wife served in the Air Force. He eventually left, became a commercial airline pilot, and was laid off after 9/11. He ended up back in the Reserves, flying fighters, and was deployed to Iraq and eventually to Afghanistan.

It’s a remarkably nuanced and enlightening piece from someone with a relatively rare set of experiences. I hope you’ll give it a read and make The War Horse part of your regular reading. And I’ll leave you with a passage:

I thought I would get to rest once I retired. I spent my entire military life worrying about “foreign enemies.” The “domestic enemies” in my oath seemed like some boilerplate that they included as an afterthought. But here I am, eight years after leaving uniform and 20 years after 9/11, and I worry almost exclusively about what my country is doing to itself.

My 15-year-old author friend Anja Herrman, a.k.a. DJ Mermaid, is going to be on WBEZ (Chicago Public Radio) today, September 22, 2021 at 3:44 pm. I wrote a post here years ago when a conversation Anja had with her aunt first aired on StoryCorps, and this is the week the Chicago StoryCorps booth will officially close. Since they first opened in 2013, StoryCorps Chicago has recorded and preserved more than 4,000 facilitated interviews in the Chicago StoryBooth, but that all ends tomorrow, when StoryCorps Chicago is permanently ceasing operations.

But rest assured. There is some good news to this blog post! To honor its official end this week, 10 StoryCorps pieces produced by WBEZ’s talented soundman Bill Healy over the past seven years have been chosen to air again, and guess what? One of them is that conversation Anja had with her aunt back in 2015!

Anja’s five-minute conversation with her aunt will play on WBEZ today, September 22, 2021 at 3:44 p.m. central time. Anja was only nine years old during that conversation, and I have it on good sources (Anja’s mom!) that the piece WBEZ airs today will include a little update from Anja now, at age 15.

I came to know Anja especially well when she was nine years old and learning at home during a casting program (casts on both legs from her hips down to her ankles). She was schooled at home for two months back then, and I was her at-home writing tutor. Many of her completed assignments have been published as guest posts, and you can read this post from 2016 to learn how and why she had all her posts back then published under the pen name DJ Mermaid.

A published writer and disability activist these days, Dj Mermaid goes by her real name now: Anja K. Herrman.

Anja was the winner of the Primary Division Playwright Discovery Program at the Kennedy Center in 2019, and a keynote speaker at the #EachforEqual International Women’s Day Event in 2020. Her work has been featured in Magnets and Ladders, Input Magazine, the Disabled Writers blog and the Huffington Post.

Anja uses a power wheelchair to navigate her public school now, she’s learned a lot about ableism in the past six years and is sure to have a lot to say when StoryCorps asks for an update. You can hear it all by tuning in to WBEZ in Chicago or asking your smart speaker to “play WBEZ” at 3:44 central time this afternoon, September 22, 2021.